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Waiting for the Emperor. Monuments, Archeology and Urban Planning in Napoleon's Rome 1809-1814

The “second city of the Empire”, in the early nineteenth century Rome tries to change its face, without giving up its millennial past: we are amidst a season of great creative effervescence and the 50 works on display at the Museo Napoleonico, many of which are little known or unpublished, allow us to discover it.

In the years between the French occupation in 1808 and the defeat of Waterloo in 1814, Rome represents the crowning of Napoleon's grandiose imperial dream. His son Francesco, born from the marriage with Maria Luisa of Austria, is given the high-sounding title of King of Rome and the Quirinale Palace is intended to become the imperial seat, renovated and transformed to accommodate the imperial couple on the occasion of the planned visit to Rome in 1812.

Overwhelmed by the Russian campaign, Napoleon will never set foot in Rome but for over five years, waiting for the emperor, the city will be invested by the French “civilizing mission” in Europe, in administration as in urban planning, making French and Italian architects and engineers dialogue, in an attempt to bring together the immense architectural and artistic heritage of the city with the Enlightenment ideas and the imperial needs.

The exhibition has four sections: we start from the “Rome of Napoleon” to dive into the “Roman celebrations for the birth of the King of Rome”; the third sector regards archaeological excavations, followed by monumental projects, such as statues, triumphal arches, bridges, extra-urban cemeteries, and urban renewal of large areas of the city, which involved Roman architects such as Camporese, Valadier and Stern, and Frenchmen like Berthault and Gisors.